Beware of Wolf

by Geonn Cannon

  "Feeling good?" Dale asked.

  "Feeling limber."

  "Good to know." Ari laughed as they sat up, cupping Dale's face and kissing her softly. She dropped her hands and gripped Dale's arms just under the elbow. She pulled, leaning backward until her ponytail touched the mat. Dale matched Ari's grip and then pulled her up and forward. Ari smiled at Dale, who kept her lips pressed tight together in an attempt to stay professional.

  They finished stretching and did a light circuit of the machines. Ari stayed on the treadmill an extra ten minutes remembering how hard she'd been breathing on the day of the ransom drop. Afterward she and Dale adjourned to the sauna and showered just as the lunch crowd began filtering in.

  When Ari took her phone out of her locker, she saw that she'd missed four calls, all of them from Detective Lorne. He'd left a voicemail on one of them so she listened to it as she finished dressing.

  "Willow. Detective Lorne. I think I've finally figured out where Brandon Kent was racking up his debts. I might need your help getting in there, if you're willing. I'm at Police Headquarters."

  Ari finished dressing quickly. As sad as it was that Missing Melody was slowly being forgotten, maybe it meant the police had more time for "minor" investigations like finding out who had killed a degenerate gambler-turned-kidnapper in a park in broad daylight. Suddenly the idea of spending a little time investigating Brandon Kent didn't seem so dull to her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Homicide floor looked suspiciously like a furniture storeroom display. Neat rows of desks formed a grid around support beams, and a row of windows along the near wall created enough natural sunlight that the overheads were turned off. Lorne's desk was near the back of the room, near a glass cube occupied by someone who preserved their privacy with a row of dark blue pleated blinds. Ari's face was still stinging from the cold, and she paused at the doorway to blow into her hands as she looked around for Lorne.

  The receiving officer had obviously called ahead to let him know Ari was on her way up as he was standing and watching the door when she appeared. He was an attractive man of indeterminate age, Ari's guess hovering around either side of forty. Today he was dressed for the weather with a thick sweater over his dress shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair could stand to be cut and introduced to a comb, but he made it look charmingly rakish. He always managed to look tired, even early in the day.

  He motioned her over, speaking as soon as she was within non-shouting earshot. "Do you know anything about the Wandering Wolf?"

  "It's an Encyclopedia Brown story, right? Bugs Meany stole Sally's dog."

  Lorne held up a printout. "It's a bar a few blocks from Brandon Kent's house. According to one of his friends, that's where he used to go to play cards. I'd go down there and see if anyone would talk to me, but I think we both know how that would turn out."

  "Aw, don't get down on yourself, Detective. They just don't know you like I do."

  "Funny." He noticed her tie. "What are you all dressed up for? Where's the greasy jumpsuit and baggy sweaters I've come to expect from you?"

  "They're at the dry cleaners. This is my laundry day hand-me-downs."

  "Well, when you get them back, how about you head down to the bar and see if you can find out anything about the games. Who runs them, if there are any regulars, how much exactly our kidnapper owed. That sort of thing."

  "Is the department picking up the tab?"

  "I thought Madeline Morris hired you."

  Ari nodded. "She did. To get her daughter back. This is just bonus, making sure she doesn't get taken again. I only do so much for free, Detective."

  "Good to know." He paused and scratched his chin. "All right. I'll talk it over with my captain and see about getting you a check."

  "Then I'll see about heading down there tonight. Wandering Wolf, huh?" She raised an eyebrow.

  "Worried? Because in my experience, wolves usually mean trouble."

  Ari shrugged. "When it comes to people, wolves are harmless until they're given a reason not to be. I'll let you know what I find out tomorrow."

  "I appreciate it."

  Lorne looked at the window. "Drive safely. Looks like a storm is coming in."

  Ari nodded her thanks to him and left the building. She was outside before she realized that visiting the bar would interfere with her plans to go out for a run. She cursed under her breath. Sometimes being successful and busy was more trouble than it was worth.

  #

  Ari loosened her tie as she stepped into the office. "It's amazing how unreasonable people are when you tell them they have to go to court."

  "Uh-oh." Dale moved her hands from the keyboard. "Did somebody throw something at you again?"

  "No. But I risk slipping on icy sidewalks just to get called names? I had two papers to serve, and somehow I managed to get flipped off five times. If I was being sued, I think I'd want to know about it. Better than losing in absentia, right?" She went into her office and Dale followed. "I'm just doing them a favor. I'm giving them the knowledge they need in order to fight, and they act like I'm the one suing them."

  Dale sat next to her on the couch and motioned for her to take her shoes off. Ari obeyed and twisted to lie against the arm of the couch, placing her feet in Dale's lap. Dale took the left one first, rubbing the arch with both thumbs.

  "Poor baby."

  "And even worse, I have to spend the night hanging out at some stupid bar where Brandon Kent gambled away all his cash in the hopes I can find a lead to Mystery Man. So I can't run tonight after all."

  Dale's humor faded to real sympathy. "Aw, I'm sorry sweetie. You could go for a run now."

  Ari considered it and shook her head. "Too many people even in the parks. The last thing I need is to spend a night locked up in the kennel."

  "Well..." Dale pressed her lips together. "I know you've kind of been avoiding her since that kiss, but Milo has all that space behind her house. She'd probably let you run around for an hour or so just to get it out of your system."

  "I don't know..."

  Dale switched to Ari's right foot. "Come on, Ari. We've seen her, what, three times since that whole thing with her kissing you." She squeezed Ari's toes through her sock. "And I never told you that there was something... else that day I helped her find her stashes."

  Ari had let the indirect comment from Milo drop, but now the memory came rushing back to her. "Oh? Praytell."

  "It was nothing. I was trying to get up this embankment, and I slipped. She was right behind me and caught me, and she kind of... held on for a minute. It was a very awkward moment. And I think if it had happened before you and I got together, I might have let it turn into something more." She glanced at Ari. "Don't be angry, okay?"

  "I'm not." She pushed herself up on her elbows and frowned. "That was the day before she invited me out to run, and she tried to kiss me. You're saying you felt like it was a romantic moment? Like she was coming onto you?"

  Dale shrugged. "Well. A little. There was a definite sense that she would have let it happen if I'd gone for it." She squeezed Ari's foot. "Don't be mad at her, Ari."

  "No, I'm not. You're a beautiful woman and she'd just spent the day with you. I'd be shocked if she didn't get a little swoon-ish around you. I'm just remembering when she was coming onto me her logic was that wolves should be with wolves. And then right before the ransom drop, she mentioned that you and she had a moment..."

  Dale pulled her head back in surprise. "She mentioned it?" She thought for a moment and dropped her gaze to Ari's throat. "Is that why you bought the collar?"

  "No." Ari shrugged and sighed. "Partially. But it was the way she brought it up." She sat up and dropped her feet to the floor. "Why would she come on to both of us on the same day?"

  Dale pushed her hair behind her ears. "Maybe she wants a threesome."

  Ari shook her head. "I think she wants to come between us."

  "Sounds like a threesome to me." Ari looked at her and Dale shrugged. "Sorry. Trying t
o lighten the mood. Why would she want to break us up?"

  "I don't know. But I'm going to find out." She bent down to retrieve her shoes and put them back on. "I'm going to use the pretense of needing a run and head over there. I'm going to bullshit her a little and see where it goes. Are you okay with that?"

  Dale reached out and eased Ari's shirt collar down. She unfastened the leather collar and pulled it off. Ari reached up and brushed the skin where it had rested, feeling suddenly naked without it. Dale put it around her fingers and held it up.

  "This will be waiting when you get back. Just don't carry the ruse too far, huh?"

  "I promise." She leaned in and kissed the corner of Dale's mouth, whispering, "I love you," before she kissed her properly. Dale put her free hand on the back of Ari's neck and repeated it back to her when they pulled back. Ari kissed the tip of Dale's nose and said, "One way or another, I'll find out what's going on."

  "One way or the other?"

  "Either she'll tip her hand or I'll beat it out of her." She winked and stood up. She put her coat back on and, not wanting to sniffle through a confrontation, took her scarf as well. "Hopefully it won't take very long. I was planning to hit the bar around eight and depending on how long it takes for me to get into the poker game... you probably shouldn't wait up for me." She cupped Dale's cheek. "I'll miss you."

  "I'll miss you, too." She kissed Ari's wrist. "And hey... no matter how late it is, if Milo kisses you, come over to my place. I don't want her to be the last person you kiss if the world ends tomorrow."

  Ari wanted to smile, but she was too touched. She moved her hand up into Dale's hair and pulled her close. "I spent too much time not kissing you. I don't know what I was thinking." She kissed Dale as if she was trying to make up for lost time all at once, but she finally pulled back and touched her tongue to the corner of her mouth. "Okay. I should go."

  "Yeah." She wrapped the scarf around Ari's neck and tucked it up over her nose. Ari winked and Dale blew her a kiss. Ari left, confident that whatever explanation Milo had, she was prepared to handle it.

  #

  The streets were all but abandoned on the drive to Milo's house. Ari hoped that it would lead to the bar being closed early on account of the weather. If she could skip out on her obligations to Detective Lorne, it meant she could put on some thick socks and snuggle under blankets with Dale with some hot cocoa. She idly touched her neck, surprised by how much she missed the negligible weight of the leather. Maybe it wasn't the physical weight she missed.

  The rental car and another vehicle she hadn't seen before were parked in the driveway of Milo's house, forcing Ari to park at the curb. She was encouraged by the fact Milo had company, especially the woman whose presence had caused Milo to sneak Ari around the front of the house so she wouldn't be seen. As she walked up the front lawn she noticed the footsteps in the snow leading back and forth from the front porch. Apparently the house had seen a lot of activity in the past twelve hours.

  She tugged down the scarf and made sure the top buttons of her shirt were undone to reveal the absence of the collar. She turned her face toward the cold wind and took a few deep breaths, holding them for a second and then exhaling a cloud of pale white fog. She was huffing now, her cheeks red, her eyes wet with tears that she tried to blink away as the door opened. She turned toward it, expecting Milo, but she was startled to find a light-skinned black man staring at her instead.

  "Um. Hello."

  "May I help you?"

  She wiped the cuff of her coat under her eye. "Uh, i-is Milo here?"

  "I shall see if she's available. Please, come inside to wait." He stepped aside so she could enter. "I'll just be a moment."

  She watched him ascend the stairs, her face burning as her cheeks thawed out. One sniff had told her he was a canidae and a smoker, but that was all she could tell from him. She walked toward the dining room door, certain she could smell the perfume of the unknown female visitor but she couldn't see anybody. She rubbed her frozen palms together, wishing she'd brought gloves, and looked toward the second floor just as Milo appeared at the top of the stairs.

  "Ariadne? What are you doing here?" She cast a panicked look left and then right. "Who let you in?"

  "Some guy. He didn't introduce himself." She remembered she was supposed to be an emotional wreck so she rubbed at her eyes. "I didn't realize you had company. I can go."

  "Don't be silly. They're interlopers and you're a guest. What's wrong? You're totally frozzed and you look as if you've had a terrible day." Her eyes drifted down to the hollow of Ari's throat, noting the lack of a collar. Ari realized she had noticed Milo noticing it ever since it had shown up, a simple glance that now seemed to speak volumes. "Is everything all right? C'mere. Let's talk about it."

  Ari feigned reluctance as Milo guided her into the dining room. She brought her hands up as if she was ashamed by tears in them, and that gave her the leeway to watch Milo. She scanned the dining room to make sure it was empty and then quickly craned her neck to look into the kitchen. She pulled out a chair.

  "Have a seat. I'll get you something warm to drink."

  She went into the kitchen and left Ari alone. She twisted in the chair to look behind her. Where had the doorman gone?

  "Just stay here and stay quiet, right?" It was hissed, barely loud enough for Ari to hear. A few seconds later Milo came back with two mugs. "One good thing about an unwanted American in the house, they make sure you have coffee for emotionally-needful guests. How'd'ya take it?"

  "Ah, black. Black is fine."

  Milo handed her a mug and sat next to her. "Now what's all this about? Where's your collar?"

  Ari touched her throat. "Actually it was Dale's collar. She took it back. We broke up." Saying the words hurt more than she thought it would. Even knowing that Dale was back at the office and, in a few hours, would be waiting for her to come by for a goodnight kiss, saying it out loud caused a fresh wave of tears to glisten in her eyes. "Damn it..."

  "Cor... you poor thing." She put her hand on Ari's shoulder and squeezed. "I can't believe... what happened? You two seemed so... right together."

  Ari scoffed. "Right. You don't have to say that."

  "But I believe it. Watching the two of you... I..." She seemed to get choked up and looked away. "You seemed so happy together."

  "You don't believe it," Ari said softly. "I mean, why else would you have come on to both of us the same day? You saw it. You saw that we weren't happy. I don't know why it took us so long to agree with you."

  She sniffled and hugged herself, feeling nauseated by this ruse. To fake it she had to believe it, and believing that she and Dale were breaking up was too much for her. Milo touched Ari's hair and then muttered something under her breath. She stood up suddenly and walked toward the wall, her head bowed and her hands on her hips.

  "Don't do this, Ariadne."

  "What do you mean?"

  Milo turned. "I mean fight for her, god damn it. Forget about what I did. Go back to her like this, let her see how much it's killin' ya to be apart from her. Tell her you made a mistake or convince her that she made one. 'Cause I can't stand it. I can't stand seein' you like this and knowin' it's my fault."

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  Ari turned toward the man's voice. He had slipped into the dining room from the foyer, hands behind his back in a casual manner that belied the fire in his gaze.

  Milo was undaunted by the daggers he stared into her. "Forget it, granddad. Look at her! I'm not doing this to her."

  Ari slowly stood up, dropping the act as she looked between Milo and the old man. "Milo, what's going on?"

  The man glanced at Ari as if she was an annoying bug that had just landed on his dinner plate. Then he looked back at Milo.

  "What's changed, Millicent?"

  "I didn't expect to like her." Milo looked apologetically at Ari. "Why couldn't you have just been a bitch?"

  "I am a bitch," Ari said softly. "At least three nigh
ts of the week, I am."

  Milo laughed and tears rolled down her cheeks. "Well, fuck it. The rest of the time, you're a person I respect. I've gotten in the middle of relationships before. I've broken couples up. But I won't do it to you. You love Dale and she loves you, and I'm not going to be the one who gets in the middle of it."

  "So you really were trying to break us up?"

  A quick nod of the head and then, as if sensing it had to be said out loud. "I was. Yeah."

  "Why in the hell would you do that, Milo?"

  "That... is a very long story."

  The woman had spoken from behind her, from the kitchen door, but Ari kept her eyes locked on Milo. Suddenly it was very hard for her to inhale, hard for her to breathe. She clenched her teeth and felt her face grow warm as the woman joined them in the dining room. The man who had answered the door looked at the new arrival and retreated a step, deferring to the woman's authority. Milo also tensed slightly, her eyes locked just over Ari's shoulder with an uneven mixture of fear and respect.

  The sound of the woman's heels, a slow tapping, sounded like a giant clock ticking off the seconds. She seemed to accept Ari wasn't going to look at her, so she walked in a wide circle around the dining room table until she was standing next to Milo.

  Her hair was still brown but streaked with gray. It had been pulled back and held with a clip that let it cascade down onto her shoulders. Ari's hands felt cold, as if they'd fallen asleep. She narrowed her eyes, trying to shut out her vision of the woman in the blood-red blouse, open at the collar to reveal an oval cameo. She wore a black skirt and black stockings, her heels making her almost a full head taller than Milo. She rested a hand on Milo's shoulder, causing her to flinch. She smiled.

  "It's so lovely to see you again, Ariadne."

  Ari's mouth was suddenly dry. "Wish I could say the same, Mom."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ari was thirteen. From the outside she was indistinguishable from the other girls in her class. A little taller, more slender, but with the same rebellious attitude her peers affected. She lived in affluence, a large home in Seward Park with a view of Lake Washington from her attic bedroom. She had friends, tentative girlfriends with whom she had kissed or cuddled with but had never gone any farther. She liked baseball, she had experimented with cigarettes and beer but had not yet found anyone who'd offered her pot.